The Fight for Gay Rights Shifts to Jacksonville

Here in the holiday season Christians are supposed to be motivated by peace. love and good will towards all.  That is, unless one is a "conservative Christian" in which case one's motives and thoughts continue to run to hate, bigotry, and a license to mistreat others.  At least that is the image one gets from the ongoing effort of the "godly folk" in Jacksonville, Florida, to defeat a measure before that city's city council that would provide LGBT protections in housing, public accommodation and employment.  As was done in Houston, these "loving Christians" are depicting gays and especially the transgender as predators seeking to lurk in women's rooms so that they can molest women and girls.  The irony is that moderate Muslims are being told that should condemn their extremist coreligionists, yet moderate Christians are largely silent when it comes to condemning their foul fellow Christians.  Once again, Christianity in America receives an undeserved deference.  Here are highlights from the New York Times on the message of hate being promoted by the "godly folk":

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The first major gay rights showdown since Houston’s rancorous vote to repeal its anti-discrimination ordinance is shaping up here in Jacksonville, the largest city in the nation whose leaders have never enacted civil rights protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Like Houston, Jacksonville is a growing Southern city where religion plays a powerful role in public life. And, as in Houston, the battle here pits a well-organized coalition of gays and business forces against energized Christian conservatives who raise issues of religious freedom and the specter of male predators in women’s bathrooms.

For Christian conservatives, wounded from repeated losses in the courts culminating in the Supreme Court’s decision in June to make same-sex marriage legal nationwide, it is a chance to show that Houston was not an isolated victory.

“It’s a fact of life that predators attack women and children in bathrooms; it happens everywhere,” said one panelist, Roger Gannam, a lawyer and former Jacksonville resident who represents Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. He drew jeers when he said an anti-discrimination law “will make that easier” by allowing male criminals to pose as transgender.

Currently, more than 200 cities and 17 states have ordinances barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, with no evidence of any increase in crime, proponents say.

If Christian conservatives are not as well organized here as they were in Houston, they soon would be, Mr. Gannam said in an interview. He helped lead the opposition that defeated a similar effort in Jacksonville in 2012, and is now working with a coalition of pastors and conservative groups, including the Florida Family Policy Council, a statewide group affiliated with Focus on the Family.

And already, others are organizing locally. Raymond Johnson, a Republican strategist who runs a ministry devoted to “biblical concepts in public policy,” has been emailing a network of pastors with fliers opposing what he calls “a Christian persecution law.”

“The business case is simple,” said Steve Halverson, the chief executive of the Haskell Company, one of the city’s largest private employers. “We are handicapped if we have a culture that is the least bit intolerant or uncomfortable for anybody.”

The hypocrisy of the "Christians" is disgusting.  They define "Christian persecution": as anything that restricts their right to persecute and mistreat others.  The Biblical Pharisees come off as nice folks in comparison.  Please NEVER call me a Christian if it puts me in the same category as these foul individuals.  

Anti-Gay Bigotry Kicks Off 2015 in Florida

The "godly Christians" who hold the office of county clerk in Duval, Clay, and Baker Counties, Florida, have kicked off 2015 with a display of the pervasive sense of special rights and being above the law that is a hallmark of conservative Christians across the nation.  These three bigots (pictured above) have declared that they will end all courthouse weddings rather than have same sex marriages performed.  All three need to be cited with contempt of court, do some jail time and be removed from office.   The fellow bigots on the staffs also need to join the ranks of the unemployed.  A harsh example needs to be made that Christians are bound by the same laws as the rest of the citizenry and, if one cannot respect the legal rights of others, then get the hell out of public office and/or out of the public employment sector. Period.  The Savannah Morning News has details.  Here are highlights:

If same-sex marriage is allowed across the state, Duval Clerk of Courts Ronnie Fussell, Clay Clerk Tara Green and Baker Clerk Stacie Harvey will have no choice but to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. But to avoid performing ceremonies for them, these clerks have decided to end all courthouse weddings.

Fussell says the decision came after a series of discussion with members of his staff who currently officiate wedding ceremonies. None of them, including Fussell, felt comfortable doing gay weddings so they decided to end the practice all together.

“It was decided as a team, as an office, this would be what we do so that there wouldn’t be any discrimination,” Fussell said. “The easiest way is to not do them at all.”

Equality Florida co-founder and chief executive Nadine Smith was shocked to hear that certain counties would stop allowing courthouse wedding because of the possibility gay couples would want to use the service.

“I think it would be outrageous for clerks to change the rules simply because gay couples are getting married,” she said.

Smith, an advocate for gay and lesbian rights, predicted the policy change would backfire and be characterized as spiteful and mean.

Last Valentine’s Day, Fussell personally officiated a mass wedding for 12 heterosexual couples in the courthouse rotunda. He waived the ceremony fee, gave each bride flowers and offered a cupcake reception.

With the possibility that he would be forced to include gay couples who wanted to participate this year, there will be no weddings under the dome or the in the “wedding arbor” room that is most often used for these ceremonies.

Residents of Baker, Clay and Duval counties who want to avoid usual wedding expenses will now have to find a minister or notary to perform the ceremony after they pick up their marriage license, but a place other than the courthouse.

As I said, fire all of these assholes.  No special rights for Christian bigots. 

CEO Refuses to Do Business in Antigay Jacksonville

I noted yesterday how Hampton, Virginia mayor Molly Ward has signed the Mayors for Marriage Equality Statement.  Besides the fact that it's the right thing to do and is a step towards ending marriage discrimination, there's a practical side to signing onto marriage equality: more and more businesses do not want to locate to cities and states that discriminate.  Thus, if a city wants to attract progressive and innovative business, supporting gay equality and non-discrimination protections makes sound economic sense.  A story out of Jacksonville, Florida highlights this reality.  A member of the board of directors of a sizable business looking to relocate to Jacksonville changed its mind when that city voted down non-discrimination protections for LGBT citizens.  Bigotry carries a cost even if the bigots sometimes do not grasp that they are killing their own economic future.  Here are highlights fro The Advocate:

It was in August when the Jacksonville City Council shot down an antidiscrimination ordinance protecting LGBT residents. Repercussions of that decision are now reverberating, as a local attorney says a major corporation refused to move to Jacksonville because of the measure's failure.

Marianna Smith is a lawyer and board member at an unidentified company. She writes in the The Florida Times-Union that the CEO of the company she serves on the board of refused to relocate to Jacksonville after the council rejected the ordinance (click here for a closer look at the measure's failure). The CEO was also affected by antigay letters and op-eds that appeared in local newspapers. Here's what Smith wrote:

"To build a business, you need more than just land; you need a favorable environment for employees.

I am a member of the board of directors of a rapidly growing, multi-million dollar international company. We employ chemists and engineers, marketers/sales staff plus a full manufacturing and distribution facility.

The company is located in a landlocked city and wishes to move to a city with a port, rail and truck service.
I have strongly advocated Jacksonville as our future business home. Unfortunately, the CEO came to evaluate Jacksonville when the letters and comments of hate were in our paper opposing the proposed changes to the Jacksonville anti-discrimination ordinance.

The CEO was shocked and said any determination about Jacksonville would not occur until after the bill was voted on by the City Council.
 
Jacksonville lost this company because of the results of the anti-discrimination bill vote.

I have served as a director on other international boards, and I can promise you that those companies would also decline Jacksonville as a headquarters home in view of the way our council and some citizens responded to a call for equal rights.